


Let Me Also Wear Such Deliberate Disguises

by Jinsai_ish



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinsai_ish/pseuds/Jinsai_ish
Summary: Post-series.  I left the identity of the 2nd pairing ambiguous because it doesn't really matter whom it is to the story but if you wish, you may substitute your favorite.
Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Other(s), Duo Maxwell/Solo





	Let Me Also Wear Such Deliberate Disguises

**Let Me Also Wear Such Deliberate Disguises**  
  
_When Joseph Conrad died, Ernest Hemingway, by way of an obituary notice, wrote a little piece in the TRANSATLANTIC REVIEW, in October 1924, and what he said was that if it could be shown that by grinding T. S. Eliot down to a fine powder, and by sprinkling the powder upon Conrad's grave, then Conrad would immediately jump out of his grave and commence to write, then he, Hemingway, would leave for London immediately with a sausage grinder in his luggage._  
  
Duo had read that somewhere. Or perhaps he’d had it quoted at him. Or it had been quoted at him and then later he’d read it. Probably Father Maxwell – he’d been the one encouraging the young orphan to spend as much time as he liked in the library. Father Maxwell had liked Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Duo recalled, as well as Dante, Virgil, and Augustine. The old priest had started as a Jesuit, had loved books.  
  
Then again, it may have been G, that quote. Yeah, that made even more sense. G probably had some sort of twisted mental shrine to Conrad built in that brain of his. Towards the front most likely. Lots of room in the sinus area after all. G hadn’t put much stock into poetry either, always passing on it and saying that sort of crap was J’s thing, or O’s. G liked his frozen numbers, or his molten physics, and he liked Joe Conrad and had given Duo the man’s novels as part of his training. Make him a real well-rounded person, he’d said. Help him pass undercover. _Heart of Darkness_ , _The Secret Sharer_ , _The Shadow Line_ … Yeah. Duo had liked them too. Must have been something G had quoted.  
  
_…leave for London immediately with a sausage grinder in his luggage._  
  
Duo grunts as he stumbles into their tiny apartment, his and his lover’s. Wearily, he pries off a pair of mud-coaked combat boots and collapses on the coach, already ranting about the damn paperwork Une made him stay late (without so much as a shower!) to fill out. His pissing and moaning wins him a hot cup of coffee pressed into his hands and he sips it gratefully but he knows –  
  
He _**knows**_ …  
  
_…with a sausage grinder in his luggage._  
  
He knows just how Hemingway felt. He can feel the couch cushions’ almost imperceptible shift as his lover sits down at the other end and Duo leans in to kiss them, lips and tongue flavored with coffee just the way he likes it – black as the void in space and bitter like it too. He kisses and he lies in his kiss, which is a near avoidance of his claim that he never tells a lie. But he’s not saying anything, just kissing. Hadn’t lied, hadn’t made false claims like ‘I love you’ or ‘I need you’. Just kisses, and letting his lover push back, push him down against the couch, struggle with the tiny, black buttons that hold his shirt together.  
  
And if they’d had a sausage grinder in their apartment, if it could be proved that by slitting his lover’s throat and grinding them down to a fine powder, and by sprinkling the powder upon Solo's grave, then Solo would immediately jump out of his grave, then he, Duo Maxwell, would retrieve that blade strapped against his right calve and be on his way to the L-2 colonies in a matter of hours.  
  
It’s not that he doesn’t like his lover. He does, a great deal. Duo showers, and afterwards they make dinner together, and if his choice of partners has a quieter, shyer nature than the former Deathscythe pilot, it doesn’t hinder their relationship in any way. It would be hard to not be quieter and shyer than the braided teen and, besides, Duo enjoys it. He appreciates the easy companionship as he slices up vegetables for their dinner. He’s glad they’re together, glad he has someone at his side who can understand him, even a little, who went through the war and knows that when the nightmares come (as they will, for both of them), that he doesn’t need or want to ‘talk’ about them. They’re idiots, all of those quack doctors, who don’t get that there’s a reason they might need to bottle up their feelings, to shove them as far down as they can so that they can get through a day, an hour, without screaming over and over again. They’re coping, best they can, as is. They’re trying to live, and what therapist has any right to expect more from them?  
  
This is as close as they get to a normal life, waiting for the water to come to a boil before sliding the vegetables into the pot, and Duo knowing he’d murder the person next to him if it would bring Solo back to him. He’s not entirely sure there’s no one in his lover’s past they wouldn’t do the same for, and the former pilot also isn’t sure he wants to ask, so he doesn’t.  
  
If it could be Solo by his side… Solo delivering coffee with the wry, almost sarcastic smile of his… Solo’s dry wit instead, and Solo’s eyes softening to tenderness in those rare moments when he thought Duo was too tired to notice, or at least, too tired to protest. He suspects he loved – loves, he still loves him, -- Solo too much. Feeling that much for a dirty, smart-aleck street rat with shaggy blond hair and sharp eyes, not to mention with a good number of years on him (not to mention dead), that had to border on the profane. Didn’t it? Trampled right over the border and back without a passport or a care actually, he suspected.  
  
So he and Hemingway have something in common then, although it’s not Solo’s writing that he wanted. Just Solo, who was never supposed to have left him, who’d promised they’d always be together.  
  
There’s a reason why Duo keeps breathing everyday, even if he forgets it sometimes. Luckily, his lover’s pretty damn good at reminding him, and Duo’s glad of it, even if sometimes –  
  
Just sometimes mind you.  
  
Even if sometimes, he does wonder about that sausage grinder.


End file.
